Cads for Choice!

Ashley Herzog

2/4/2013 1:07:00 PM - Ashley Herzog

At least Toure is honest.

On the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the MSNBC commentator literally thanked God and country for abortion. Fifteen years ago, he was in a “committed relationship” with a woman “who I knew was just not the one.” As Toure explained:

“She got pregnant, and I was terrified…I knew that pregnant woman and I were not going to be able to form a lasting family. She decided it was best to have an abortion and days later she did, we did, and in some ways that choice saved my life. I remain committed to being pro-choice because I cannot imagine arguing against a woman's right to control her body.”

And a man’s right to have unprotected sex with a woman, and then send her off to clean up the mess with an invasive surgery. That’s not just my interpretation; Toure admitted this, loud and clear. (I wonder how his former girlfriend—the one who had to undergo the abortion—was enjoying this segment.)

Toure’s comments were cowardly and unmanly. After all, what is being a man all about? Protecting and caring for your woman and supporting your children seems like a minimum requirement. Now men can weasel their way out of these duties on the grounds that they’re “terrified.” Others go further, twisting the arms of their pregnant partners to “take care of it.” Some resort to violence. Murder is a leading cause of death among pregnant women.

“Men who kill pregnant women are most likely romantically involved with their victims and see the pregnancy and unborn child as obstacles and burdens in their lives,” ABC reported in 2005. The network interviewed Pat Brown, profiler and chief executive officer of The Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency, who said, “The usual reason when it involves a man is the unborn baby. The baby is causing a complication in his life.”

In one horrifying 2010 incident, an Ohio woman was forced into an abortion clinic at gunpoint after she refused to go through with her scheduled procedure. A former abortion clinic security guard testified before the Massachusetts legislature that women were often threatened and abused by the men who took them to the clinics to have abortions.

As Americans have seen over the last few years, men in high places often feel entitled to sleep around, have extramarital affairs, and use abortion to hide the evidence. John Edwards called his mistress, Rielle Hunter, a “crazy slut” and pressured her to abort their daughter. (He then denied the child was his, proving what a slimy shyster he truly is.) Republican Congressman Steve DeJarlais claimed to be “pro-life,” but coerced his mistress into an abortion to protect his reputation.

As Phyllis Schlafly wrote in the aftermath of the Clinton scandals: “It comforts the conscience of the promiscuous man to mouth the mantra that abortion is a woman's ‘choice.’ After having invaded a woman's body, it gets the man off the hook to recite the slogan that a woman should be able to do what she wants with her own body. If he wants to be generous, he can give her $300 to exercise her ‘choice.’”

During one of Schlafly’s speeches at a California university, “a male student explained this explicitly. ‘We have to have abortion available so I can enjoy the pleasure and intimacy of sexual intercourse.’”
God only knows how many women have paid a dear price for men to exercise this “right.”